Carney government could choose fate of official residence within months, source says. Rideau Cottage, the historic red-brick house where Canadian prime ministers have been living for more than a decade, is inadequate and comes with security risks, according to a government memorandum prepared last summer.
At the end of 2024, the Liberals trailed the Conservatives by a massive and seemingly insurmountable 25 points. Today, that deficit has flipped to a 20-point Liberal lead. That is not a normal swing. It may be the most dramatic one-year reversal in modern Canadian political history.
Nunavut MP reimbursed House of Commons, says purchases made in error Nunavut MP Lori Idlout says she has reimbursed the House of Commons for items bought from her own shop "in error." Idlout is the sole proprietor of the gallery Carvings Nunavut, which sells Inuit-made carvings and artwork. Publicly available expenditure reports show that on four occasions in 2025, Idlout...
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says talks with Canada ahead of the mandatory review of the continental trade pact are lagging behind those with Mexico. Speaking on Fox Business today, Greer says talks are moving ahead with his Mexican counterparts as the Trump administration negotiates changes to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is congratulating a Vaughan resident who shot an intruder, saying he should have fired more shots at him. “As for the person that was defending his family, he was a legal gun owner, stored properly — congratulations. Yeah, I’m glad you shot the guy. Teach the rest of these robbers,” Ford said at an unrelated news...
After several months of declining approval and a narrowing political environment, the Ford government appears to have stabilized. The Progressive Conservatives continue to lead comfortably on vote intention. The Ontario Liberals remain firmly in second place despite still lacking a permanent leader. And the NDP remains well behind in third. At the same time, approval of the Ford government remains...
At the end of 2024, the Liberals trailed the Conservatives by a massive and seemingly insurmountable 25 points. Today, that deficit has flipped to a 20-point Liberal lead.
A Liberal majority looks all but inevitable. Three Conservative MPs and one New Democrat having crossed the floor, the Liberals now have 170 seats out of 343 in the House. A probable sweep of the three by-elections scheduled for April 13 would leave them with 173, enough to outvote the combined opposition even without the help of the Speaker. That’s...
The Conservatives knew what they were doing – well, sort of – when they announced a petition to nominate former hockey commentator Don Cherry to the Order of Canada. It’s a great cultural wedge issue: one that pits the millions of Canadians with fond memories of Coach’s Corner against the ostensibly smaller cohort of Canadians who still begrudge Mr. Cherry...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government took steps Wednesday to drastically restrict who's eligible for medical assistance in dying. Smith's United Conservative Party government introduced a bill that, if passed, would limit medical assistance in dying, better known as MAID, to those likely to die of natural causes within a year. Those under 18 would still be prohibited regardless of condition...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is rejecting Opposition accusations of entitlement for using a private jet courtesy of the Saudi government last fall. Smith and members of her United Conservative Party government staff travelled to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for meetings about potential collaborations on issues, including energy development and artificial intelligence. Smith says she's very transparent about...
If you’re a political nerd like me (and if you’re reading this, you clearly are), you enjoy a good by-election night. They’re a fun little pitstop between general elections - a chance to get a sense of where the parties actually stand. Sometimes they tell you a lot, sometimes they tell you nothing at all, but they tell you SOMETHING...
It may have taken him more than a year, but Pierre Poilievre has finally come up with an answer to US President Donald Trump. In his ongoing attempt to pivot away from the pompous petulance that had defined his brand of politics, the Conservative leader tried something other than attacking the government. Instead, he proposed a solution to the trade...
A significant corner was turned this week when many nations, including Canada, said no to Donald Trump. It’s a word that hasn’t been said often enough as this president runs his second term, defying all challengers and asserting that he wins all battles he wages.
President Donald Trump’s late-night musing about Venezuela potentially becoming the 51st state was likely well received in the Prime Minister’s Office. It suggests that Mark Carney’s speech in Davos — widely viewed as standing up to the bully president — has persuaded Trump to move on and find an easier target than Canada or Greenland. That may be temporary, of...
WEEKS AFTER IT was delivered, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech is still generating ripples—quoted in think tanks, parsed in Ottawa, and invoked as shorthand for a world tilting away from frictionless globalization.
Channeling his inner DJ Khaled, Prime Minister Mark Carney has gotten “another one.” A floor-crosser, that is. Lori Idlout is the latest MP to cross over to the government benches, this time from the NDP, making her the fourth floor-crosser and edging the Liberals ever closer to that coveted 172 seat majority. The Liberals now have 170 seats in the...
Trouble from the progressive wing of the Liberal party as dozens of Liberal MPs have just broken with the government over arms sales
There is a nostalgic, almost wistful thread that runs through Pierre Poilievre’s approach to trade with the United States, as if he still can’t believe the happy days of the past are gone and therefore thinks it’s easy to put forward a simple idea that will bring them back. On Sunday, when the Conservative Leader presented his plan to save...
Whatever you may think about Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s chances of becoming prime minister—the proverbial snowball in hell comes to mind—he keeps trying to find a way to stay in the game against Mark Carney. It is no easy task. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s lead over Poilievre in the polls keeps growing, recently hitting 13 points. If that spread were...
Donald Trump famously said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s like incredible.” All the evidence so far has suggested that he was right. But few things shift the winds of US politics like wars.
There are political miscalculations, and then there are gifts to your opponents so perfectly timed they seem almost deliberate. Pierre Poilievre’s campaign to nominate Don Cherry for the Order of Canada belongs firmly in the second category. The Conservative leader declared last week that Cherry “embodies what it means to be a proud Canadian,” throwing his personal support behind a...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks out on this day. Article content But the premier is not on about budgets or pipelines or the place of Alberta in Canada. Smith is talking about Don Cherry, the man also known by his nickname, Grapes. For years, for far too many years, Don Cherry has been snubbed by the establishment types in this...
It’s always weird to be reminded that the world as it is – to borrow a phrase, if I may – was a very different place not so long ago, and that what now seems constant and obvious was once strange or unknown. The phone you unthinkingly grab from your pocket to do, well, everything, used to be a crazy...
For a career banker, Mark Carney plays the role of Machiavellian politician very well. The prime minister has now plucked a third MP from the opposition benches and is just two by-election wins in safe Liberal seats away from a majority government. This time Carney’s fruit was harvested from the NDP, not the Conservatives, and came in the form of...
The balance of power is shifting in favour of the western democracies. With all the controversy over the fast-moving war in Iran, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the world balance of power and international correlation of forces are shifting in favour of the western democracies. Since the reinstallation of the present U.S. administration less than...
Much is being made of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s successful efforts to poach MPs from both the Conservative and New Democratic parties in an effort to convert his minority Liberal government into a majority. But these MPs’ parliamentary perambulations are small potatoes compared to events in the early 2000s. Floor-crossings in those years helped determine the future of the conservative...
“Let the party begin.” That’s how Mark Carney started his first press conference after being sworn in as Canada’s 24th prime minister, on March 14, 2025, after a whirlwind leadership contest.
We live in a world of chatbots. The economic and social promise of large language models has driven the Western world into an AI mania that’s driving our stock markets and leading to massive investments in data centres and energy infrastructure. Yet we still don’t really know how AI works — nor the very real impacts it can have on...
The three federal by-elections that will happen in April are going to be consequential. They’ll determine whether the federal Liberal caucus will have enough members to carry votes in the House of Commons without relying on support from other parties.
A LITTLE LESS THAN a year after the April 2025 federal election, public opinion data continues to break strongly in favour of Mark Carney’s Liberal government. The latest federal poll by Leger suggests the Liberal Party now holds a substantial lead in voting intentions. The survey, conducted from February 27 to March 2 among 1,627 respondents, puts the Liberals at...
Ontario’s Doug Ford drops back close to record low, with just 31 per cent approving of him. As B.C. abandons the biannual tradition of changing clocks, Premier David Eby is falling back as some others spring ahead. New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds Eby’s approval rating has declined 16-points year-over-year. In March 2025, when most premiers enjoyed...
Janice Charette likes to hear from others before she makes an important judgment call, inviting the views of colleagues as though seated around a family dinner table. But these days, fewer and fewer decisions can wait. Shortly before retiring as Canada’s top bureaucrat in June 2023, Charette described the current era of political and economic upheaval as one of permanent...
Two Canadian cargo ships are stuck in the Persian Gulf and unable to pass through the blocked Strait of Hormuz as the war in Iran continues. The two ships, owned by Quebec-based Desgagnes, were hauling general cargo to ports in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Nunatsiaq News was the first to report on the ships being stuck...
The Bank of Canada held its principal interest rate at 2.25 per cent Wednesday, but warned rising oil and natural prices caused by the war in Iran will push up inflation in the short term. In its latest monetary policy decision, Canada’s top bankers painted a picture of a weaker-than-expected economy that is facing new levels of uncertainty because of...
The top executive of North American pipeline operator TC Energy Corp. said Canada’s process for approving energy infrastructure projects is still far too slow, despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to reform it. Chief Executive Officer Francois Poirier again called on the government to offer a six-month timeline to energy companies applying for key permits. Carney opened a new agency...
Gurpreet Singh, a 40-year-old Indian national, is suing the Canadian government and employees of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), alleging they prosecuted him maliciously and violated his charter rights. It's the latest twist in a massive immigration fraud saga in Saskatchewan that has been winding its way through the justice system for many years. At the heart of that...
Ottawa is spending $1.4-billion to bolster Canada’s domestic ammunition production capacity through the establishment of new facilities to manufacture supplies such as artillery shells and nitrocellulose, a compound used in a range of military munitions. Defence Minister David McGuinty said the funds will be divided between two companies: IMT Precision, based in Ingersoll, Ont., and General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical...
Liberals say there's been a '180-degree' shift in discipline, tone, and policy led by the prime minister, but there are warnings against overconfidence as affordability concerns persist. Over the past year, Canada’s 45th prime minister has fundamentally upended federal and international politics, partisan coalitions, the Liberal Party, and even the mood and atmosphere on Parliament Hill, particularly amongst the parliamentarians...
Culture Minister Marc Miller says the government must have a serious conversation about AI systems' use of news. "Having the news cannibalized and regurgitated undermines the spirit of the use of that news in the first place and the purpose for which it's used and we have to have a serious conversation with the platforms that purport to use it...
Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard is set to table his budget today for the upcoming fiscal year. Speaking to journalists Tuesday, he said Quebecers shouldn't expect any new big-ticket items as the province tries to reduce the deficit.
Saskatchewan's government is planning to table a deficit budget today in a move that Premier Scott Moe says protects public services. Moe has not said how large the deficit will be but says the province's economy is strong enough to weather global uncertainty. He has said market volatility, including China's previous tariffs on Canadian canola, have caused revenues to shrink.
Mark McLane, a cabinet member in Prince Edward Island's Progressive Conservative government, died on Tuesday at the age of 56. The provincial government said McLane died after a serious illness, and his loss was felt across the Island. Premier Rob Lantz paid tribute to the late minister
In the closing days of the NDP leadership race, Avi Lewis's past activism has resurfaced. But the front-runner's campaign is standing by his past work and a decade-old vision that's been both criticized within the New Democrats' ranks and weaponized by their opponents. Lewis's campaign is deflecting criticism after an old video was shared on social media this week of...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she travelled on a private plane on behalf of the Saudi government last fall. Smith says the provincial ethics commissioner had signed off on any non-commercial travel ahead of the trip and that it was proposed by the Saudi government for "more efficient travel."
Until last week, the federal byelection in Terrebonne was supposed to help push Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to a majority. Now, as one Liberal operative puts it, a win in the Montreal-area riding would ensure a more “secure” majority. While NDP MP Lori Idlout’s decision to cross the floor to the Liberals has eased off some of the pressure...
The federal government launched an appeal on Tuesday to the Supreme Court to defend its use of the Emergencies Act, which former prime minister Justin Trudeau invoked in 2022 as a way to shut down the so-called “Freedom Convoy.” “Canada has sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to review of the use of the Emergencies Act...
QUEBEC -- Quebec Liberal Leader Charles Milliard says he wants answers about allegations of fundraising irregularities during the 2025 Liberal leadership race, but insists the party as a whole should not be painted with the same brush.
A Windsor union leader representing thousands of auto workers says the federal Conservatives’ new auto strategy could end up costing jobs by allowing too many tariff-free cars into Canada. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was in the Windsor-Detroit region over the weekend, meeting with senior automotive executives. He unveiled the Official Opposition’s proposed ‘tariff-free auto pact’ in Windsor to help protect...
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot is openly mulling the idea of Canada seeking membership in the European Union. Speaking at the Europe 2026 conference in Berlin today, Barrot said the European Union is attracting more candidate countries, such as Iceland, and suggested "maybe Canada at some point" will sign up.
A senior US intelligence official appointed by President Donald Trump abruptly announced he is stepping down from his post on Tuesday, citing misgivings about the administration’s war with Iran. “After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today,” Joe Kent wrote in a post on X.
Pascal-Pierre Paillé, 47, was working as a teacher before and after his time in the House of Commons. A teacher and former Bloc Québécois member of Parliament has been arrested for allegedly committing sexual offences against two minors, Quebec City police said Tuesday.
The Chair of Unifor’s National Auto Council is disappointed the union wasn’t consulted on the Conservative Party’s proposed auto plan. “What was most frustrating is the fact that you think you [would] go to the experts that have to deal with it every day and sit down with our leader who’s been involved,” said John D’Agnolo. While in Windsor on...
Canadian Armed Forces members are "not engaged" in the "prosecution" of the war against Iran, Defence Minister David McGuinty said Tuesday when asked whether some Canadians are serving in support roles. The Canadian Press asked McGuinty at a news conference in Brampton, Ont., whether the Canadian military is involved in the war — and whether Royal Canadian Air Force members...
At the one-year anniversary of Mark Carney’s tenure as prime minister, the federal Liberals are seeing record-high support, according to the latest data from Nanos Research. In the polling firm’s most recent ballot tracking, the Liberals are at 47.6 per cent, the Conservatives at 31.1 per cent, and the NDP at 11.2 per cent. The Conservatives under leader Pierre Poilievre...
The New Brunswick government says its investments in health care have helped push the budget into a record deficit. Introduced on Tuesday, the budget's $1.4-billion deficit is the largest in the province's history, according to Finance Department staff. That's largely due to health-care spending, which will rise by $710 million, or 17.4 per cent. Finance Minister Rene Legacy said health...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand spoke out against the “weaponization” of the Strait of Hormuz in the face of an ongoing blockade but offered no specifics on what kind of support Canada is prepared to offer. “There should be no weaponization of international shipping lanes and prevention from countries around the world having the resources that they need,” Anand told...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says she agrees with Prime Minister Mark Carney that the U.S. attack on Iran violates international law -- and so does Iran's blockade of the crucial Strait of Hormuz shipping route. Anand says Canada is looking at how it can support Gulf countries being attacked by Iran as Tehran pushes back on the war launched...
The last party to hit 47 per cent support in the Nanos ballot track was the Poilievre Conservatives for the tracking ending January 10, 2025. The Liberals under Carney are at their all-time high in the Nanos tracking for Liberal support. On the preferred PM tracking Carney is the choice of 56.5 per cent of Canadians while Poilievre trails at 22.0 per cent.
Just a few days out from the first anniversary of the start of the 2025 election campaign, Mark Carney’s Liberals would likely win well over 200 seats if another election were held today. That’s what The Writ’s new model shows in its inaugural projection. Yes, the vote and seat projection model is finally live!
A group that protests Canada’s electoral system by loading up ballots with the names of dozens of little-known candidates says it is looking to do so in the April by-election in Terrebonne, Que., a race that could give Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government a much firmer grip on the House of Commons. Tomas Szuchewycz, an organizer with the Longest Ballot...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi was subpoenaed Tuesday to answer questions from Congress about the Justice Department's sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and the agency's handling of millions of files related to the disgraced financier.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- More than three decades after Lindsey Graham first arrived in Washington, he has everything he could ever want. The senator has President Donald Trump 's ear, a war in Iran and a well-funded path to reelection in his home state of South Carolina.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump relied on his gut and largely side-stepped diplomatic coordination as he made the decision to launch strikes on Iran with Israel. But now with the war's economic and geopolitical consequences unfurling rapidly, he's cajoling allies and other global powers to help mop up the mess.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- In the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump increasingly has been knocked on his political heels.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot is openly mulling the idea of Canada seeking membership in the European Union. Speaking at the Europe 2026 conference in Berlin today, Barrot said the European Union is attracting more candidate countries, such as Iceland, and suggested "maybe Canada at some point" will sign up.
A senior US intelligence official appointed by President Donald Trump abruptly announced he is stepping down from his post on Tuesday, citing misgivings about the administration’s war with Iran. “After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today,” Joe Kent wrote in a post on X.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand spoke out against the “weaponization” of the Strait of Hormuz in the face of an ongoing blockade but offered no specifics on what kind of support Canada is prepared to offer. “There should be no weaponization of international shipping lanes and prevention from countries around the world having the resources that they need,” Anand told...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says she agrees with Prime Minister Mark Carney that the U.S. attack on Iran violates international law -- and so does Iran's blockade of the crucial Strait of Hormuz shipping route. Anand says Canada is looking at how it can support Gulf countries being attacked by Iran as Tehran pushes back on the war launched...
Officials in Cuba reported an islandwide blackout Monday in the country of some 11 million people as its energy and economic crises deepen and its power grid continues to crumble. The Ministry of Energy and Mines on X noted a “complete disconnection” of the country’s electrical system and said it was investigating, noting there were no failures in the units...
A one-time northern Ontario fur-trading post, Sault Ste. Marie’s fortunes changed when U.S. industrialist Francis Clergue built a hydroelectric power plant on the banks of the St. Mary’s River more than 100 years ago. The dam brought cheap power to the area and turned it into an industrial hub. Clergue also opened a steel mill, a pulp and paper mill...
Canada is confronting a rapidly expanding illicit nicotine market that has evolved well beyond traditional contraband tobacco. Criminal networks that once focused on cigarettes now traffic in high-nicotine disposable vapes, unauthorized nicotine pouches, and a sprawling ecosystem of online black market platforms. Fragmented regulation, uneven enforcement, and the rise of e-commerce have created structural vulnerabilities that illicit actors are exploiting...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s spurious excuses for gutting the province’s freedom-of-information (FOI) law are exactly why we need transparency legislation in the first place: governments are habitual liars. Last week, the Ford government said it plans to weaken its sunshine law by erecting brick walls around every minister’s office, including the premier’s. Freedom-of-information requests will no longer be accepted. The...
For a moment there, it looked like Mark Carney would be the torchbearer for countries opposed to Trump’s big power politics. Now, not so much. In fact, it seems Prime Minister Carney is ready to embrace the “end of the international rules-based order” rather than oppose it – thanks to the confusing and contradictory statements by the Canadian government following...
On Thursday, the Liberal government finally got around to asking ordinary Canadians how to fix the country’s premier transparency law, the Access to Information Act. The Act, dating from 1983, empowers citizens to hold governments to account through requests for internal information.
It's been an emotional rollercoaster of a week so far for US President Trump. First he was greatly disappointed that none of his allies wanted to donate their military resources to guard commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Then he said he wasn't surprised that NATO worked on what he called a 'one way street' basis.
There have been four floor crossers in four months. That's not a record, but it does have people talking. One poll shows about 75 percent of Canadians want floor crossers to seek re-election, sit as independents, or quit after abandoning the party they ran for during the election. James Moore and Gerald Butts have their thoughts on that and more...
Watch conversations from Curse of Politics via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.
One of the most brutal fronts in the escalating war in the Middle East right now is in Lebanon. Israel’s ground troops have crossed the border into the south of the country, and the bombing campaign continues in cities like Beirut. Israel says its mission is to root out and defang Hezbollah and to carve out a security buffer zone...
